When first produced in 1889, August Strindberg’s “naturalistic tragedy,” Miss Julie, was a shocker: not just for its stark class conflicts, herky-jerky dialogue, and “multiplicity of motives,” but also because the set was what it …

Cygnet Theatre has already extended A Little Night Music, with good reason. They’re offering a wonderful production of Stephen Sondheim’s kaleidoscopic inspection of love’s many faces. This is Cygnet’s inaugural show at the Old Town …

Stephen Sondheim was so proud to have a musical on Broadway — West Side Story, for which he wrote the lyrics — he went back the night after it opened and stood in the aisle. …

In UCSD Theatre’s recent staging of The Physicists, Michelle Diaz played Sister Boll, a monobrowed, lock-stepping head nurse at a sanitarium. Diaz made bold physical choices, including reps of one-armed push-ups. Larry Herron played Johan …

Maybe things’re different across the lake, where vacationers play nonstrenuous games and pound down chow on the American Plan: three squares, plus tea, coffee, and snack breaks. They’ve come to the Catskills in the summer …

‘That cat Oedipus is a bad mother-…” “Shut-cho mouth!” “But I’m talkin’ ’bout Oedipus.” In Will Power’s often blazing, at times reductive hip-hop take on Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes, Oedipus is an “OG”: an “original …

Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart’s Hello, Dolly! had the requisite chops for a long Broadway run. Add in the Hall of Famers who eventually played the lead, including Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey, and Ethel Merman …

The great boxer Joe Louis and baseball immortal Josh Gibson were contemporaries who thrived in the 1930s. The Old Globe Theatre’s In This Corner tells of Louis’s exploited life in the spotlight, during the Age …

A woman walked into Ion Theatre’s intimate space, glanced at the set, and froze. The stage is an interrogation room: institutional gray, cinderblock walls, a rickety table, and a blindfolded prisoner on his knees, downstage …

Right place, wrong timing: In 1938, a friend of mine’s great-uncle saved his shekels and went to the, at that time, Fight of the Century — the Joe Louis/Max Schmeling rematch at Yankee Stadium. Along …

THE YEAR IN REVIEW: PLAYS AND PRODUCTIONS. Last year, several shows arrived ballyhoo-first. Pre–opening-night accolades promised “Broadway bound” quality and SRO houses both here and in New York. Some of them, however, were a letdown, …

“This year five shows announced themselves ‘Broadway bound’ even before they opened!”

If I could host a dinner for five "unforgettable" San Diegans from long ago, one guest would have to be Apolinaria Lorenzana. Called "La Beata" -- "the blessed one" -- she came to Alta California …

Off the Ground, by Amy Chini and Tom Zohar New Village Arts Theatre Christmas Is Comin' Uptown, Common Ground Theatre, WorldBeat Center Kristianne Kurner's set previews Off the Ground before the actors arrive. It's Christmas …

Sweet 15 (Quinceañera), by Rick Najera San Diego Repertory Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza, downtown Directed by Sam Woodhouse; cast: Rick Najera, Alma Martinez, Nina Brissey, Yvonne Delarosa, Jose Yenque, Carlo D'Amore, Fernando Vega; scenic design, …

Cry-Baby, book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, songs by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger, based on the John Waters movie La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive Directed by Mark Brokaw; cast: Chester …

'I always had a passion for play-making," says Robert Landis, co-founder of the legendary Footlights Theatre of San Diego (1947) and equally legendary Scripteasers (1948). "Theater has always been -- how to put this -- …

Dracula, by Stephen Dietz, adapted from the Bram Stoker novel North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach Directed by Christopher Vened; cast: Matt Thompson, Brenda Dodge, Robert Grossman, Jason Heil, Sean …

Oscar Wilde loved to spin platitudes on their ear. "Fathers should be neither seen nor heard," says Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband. "My Reginald is quite hopelessly faultless," says Mrs. Marchmont. "There is not …

Humble Boy, by Charlotte Jones New Village Arts Theatre, 2787 State Street, Carlsbad Directed by Kristianne Kurner; cast: Rosina Reynolds, Daren Scott, Jessica John, Jim Chovick, Dana Case, Tom Deak; scenic design, Francis Gercke; costumes, …

Harvey Fierstein's musical remake of A Catered Affair begins like a pebble tossed in a pond. Janey and Ralph are getting married. They don't want a big wedding, just a ten-dollar/ten-minute affair at City Hall, …

Before anyone speaks at the La Jolla Playhouse, we could be watching a scene from the TV show All in the Family: balding Archie Bunker slumped in his old chair; Edith, clad in shapeless cotton, …

You wonder if Alfred Huntington Isham knew his last name harbored a confession of guilt. Maybe he did. But given his dim view of human nature, and supreme confidence in his persuasive powers, maybe “I …

If E.L. Doctorow had written Ragtime as a musical in 1975, instead of a novel, I wonder if Broadway would have staged it. Set in the Progressive Era (roughly 1900 to 1914), the book extols …

Depending on who tells the story, when Captain Charles Fitzallen sailed from Cardiff, Wales, aboard the Challenger in 1887, he had a bald spot either the size of a monk’s tonsure or the Great Globe …

Some writers thrive on deadlines, with the egg-timer ticking or a nine-milly pointed at their brain. Noel Coward penned Private Lives in three days, in a bathtub, he says. William Saroyan allegedly locked himself in …

They named a crater on Mars for Richard Anthony Proctor. The British astronomer (1837–1888) not only popularized his subject, he enjoyed making controversial claims: that there could be life on other planets; that the moon …

'We'd do backflips to recreate that feeling," says lighting designer Eric Lotze, as we head upstairs at the Whaley House, "but you can't have it onstage." We'd just left the dining room at the Old …

I have always wanted to turn the eyes of local theater artists outward: have them look at examples of their craft in San Diego at large. Eric Lotze, the award-winning lighting designer for Cygnet, Moxie, …

On January 17, 1995, a 7.2 earthquake struck just north of Kobe, Japan, at dawn. Between 6500 and 7000 people lost their lives. Twenty-six thousand were injured in Japan's worst quake since 1923. Many had …

On the Old Globe stage this summer, Shakespeare's Two Gents has a disguised woman, Measure for Measure a Duke disguised as a priest, and you could even say that Prince Hamlet uses the "antic disposition" …

You learn a lot about a director's concept of Hamlet the instant the guards appear. I've seen everything from German storm-troopers to surreptitious CIA types -- gray suits, sunglasses, ominous smirks -- to generic soldiers, …

Looking for an undemanding summer bagatelle? Go see the Old Globe's Measure for Measure. It's a real crowd-pleaser. Of course, if you want an earnest exploration of one of Shakespeare's most intricate works -- designed, …

By the end of Shakespeare's romance The Two Gentlemen of Verona, you wonder when the title characters will show up. Valentine and Proteus begin as best friends: inseparable -- until separated. In one of the …

I hope they never make a movie of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. The chances are unlikely, since the play's set in two different eras (1809-1812 and 1989) and takes place at a long table where people …

After a number ended, late in the La Jolla Playhouse's Carmen, five or so dancers stood in a circle, illumined in red. Then four left the stage. The fifth, facing front, remained, as if she …

Equine karma? It's too bad Devon Tramore couldn't interview Street Sense, Curlin, and Rags to Riches, this year's Triple Crown winners. Devon, a female jockey in Mary Fengar Gail's Devil Dog Six, can more than …

The lights come up. We're in a room under repair: boards tilt against bare walls; faux blue marble fireplace. In the center's a silver tarp and a blindfolded old man slumped on a chair. There's …

George and Martha can't live with, or without, each other. At the end of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? two questions surface: Can they live without the fantasy, the one safe subject, that …

Awhile back, I wrote a feature about D.J. Sullivan, who has taught acting in San Diego for 40 years. I couldn't let her get away without some thoughts on her favorite topic: subtexts. "You see …

On paper it looked like a lock. The same Cygnet Theatre team that did award-winning work with Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof last year -- director-scenic designer Sean Murray, actors Jim Chovick, …

Lee's home-style diner's at 1621 Wylie Avenue, in Pittsburgh's Hill District. Across the street, the Prophet Samuel, bejeweled with rings, lies in an open casket at West's funeral parlor. A block-long queue of mourners wants …

In his youth, John Donne (1572-1631) was a hot Metaphysical poet who wrote salacious verses and thought Shakespeare, his elder by eight years, a doddering oaf. Donne yoked religious language and topical references to his …

Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /mnt/disk1/sdreader/php/smith_show.php on line 87 Flawed scripts, polished productions. The long, sketchy first act of Enchanted April, at Lamb's Players, recalls Chekhov's Three Sisters. …

Depending on who does the defining, Erika and Jessica are either semi-permanent or entry-level clerical workers at Solomon, Greenspan, Sachs. In their mid-twenties, they see themselves as semi-permanent and fast-tracking toward their chosen career, whatever …

One actor speaks. The other listens. They talk back and forth through a scene. But D.J. Sullivan's teaching a class on "overlapping dialogue," where the actors should jump on each other's lines. For Sullivan, the …

Who cares for the caregiver? Adriana Sevan assumed that when her best friend Rhonda was seriously injured, Sevan would stay by her side, see to her every need, and all would quickly heal on love …

In Amy Freed's Restoration Comedy, Amanda's married to a philanderer named, appropriately, Loveless. He ran off to the Continent and, for a decade, celebrated "the diversity of God's creation." Hearing she died, Loveless returns to …

Two of the most useful books I've read about theater: Moss Hart's Act One and Michael Shurtleff's Audition. Hart's concerns playwriting, not the craft so much as the tenacity it demands. He wrote one a …

In Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart, Doc's young son Scott is going to the dentist for the first time. And just about everyone else in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, is having the adult equivalent. Lenny MaGrath …